Before killing his kids, man wrote of a curse used by fiancee's family; mom says 'It's not true'

After killing his children, Frantz Bordes ended his own life by leaping in front of a subway train in Brooklyn.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- In one of seven suicide notes, Frantz Bordes wrote that he was cursed by voodoo – and cops say that belief cost his two children their lives.

Tormented by the obsession that his fiancee's relatives were scheming to ruin him, the 39-year-old Haitian native snapped Wednesday night, drowning their young son and daughter in the bathtub of their apartment at 30 Daniel Low Terrace in New Brighton, police believe.

Bordes then went to Brooklyn and jumped in front of a Q subway train, ending his life, police said.

"They're using everything they can to destroy me, most of all voodoo," Bordes wrote, according to police.

But Francoise Mercier, Bordes' fiancee and the children's mother, called that claim a lie last night.

"No, no, no, no, no! It's not true, it's not true," she said in an interview with the Advance. "He's always been jealous about my relatives, because they loved my children so much. ... He lied. You cannot make those lies."

Ms. Mercier, 42, also a native of Haiti, found her two children, Sweitzer, 4 – who was born Sept. 11, 2001 – and Stephanie, 2, lying lifeless next to each other in the bathtub, shortly after she got home from her health-aide job at St. Elizabeth Ann's Health Care and Rehabilitation Center in Stapleton late Wednesday.

The city medical examiner's office yesterday ruled the deaths homicides by drowning.

MOM ASKS WHY?

"Why do you have to kill me, why do you have to take away my joy? Why do you have to take away your children, your flesh? Why?" Ms. Mercier railed last night.

She said Bordes didn't do anything strange before she left for work – he changed Stephanie's clothes and gave her yogurt to eat, and she left.

She called home at about 8:20 p.m. when she went on break, but no one answered the phone at the apartment.

When she returned, just after 11:30 p.m., she found a ring – which she called a "wedding band," although the two had not yet married – in a box on the apartment's hallway floor, she said.

Ms. Mercier looked for the children in the living room, where they regularly slept, then in the bedroom; when she couldn't find them, she called a relative in Brooklyn, thinking Bordes had taken them there.

A police officer was at the relative's home when she called, she said, because Bordes had jumped in front of the train at about 8 p.m. That's when her instincts told her to check the bathroom, and she found the children dead.

"He's supposed to kill me and let the children live, because they are innocent," she cried. "So why do you wait behind my back?"

If Bordes needed help, he could have asked her, or even gone online to look for someone to call for support, she said.

Yesterday afternoon, two detectives accompanied a relative of Ms. Mercier to the apartment to pick up a purse, a change of clothes and a book

CRIES OF ANGUISH

Neighbors say they're still haunted by Ms. Mercier's cries of anguish when she found her children dead in the third-floor apartment.

"The scream – I can't even describe it," said Takisha Collins, who was showering in her first-floor apartment at the time. "I might have heard it in movies, but never in real life."

Stan Barton, the building superintendent, said he didn't have any complaints about Ms. Mercier and Bordes, who had lived there for about three years.

He recalled interacting with the couple on only two occasions – two years ago, when the children were jumping on the bed, disturbing the downstairs neighbors, and a little over a year ago, when the bathroom flooded.

"They weren't the popular people in the building," he said. "You don't see them often. I never had a problem with them. It's like a shock. When I heard what had happened, it's unbelievable."

Building residents expressed similar shock at the news – some shook their heads in disgust, some cried and some threw up their hands in anger and disbelief.

Charly Pumarol said his 3-year-old daughter occasionally played with Ms. Mercier's children in the building's laundry room. Yesterday, he was at a loss for words.

"Two innocent kids did not deserve this," said Pumarol, his voice trailing off. "It's creepy. I'm just in a state of shock."

SUBWAY SUICIDE

At the Church Street subway station where Bordes died, in the heavily Caribbean Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, commuters shuddered at the thought that someone had leapt to his death in the same station they use each day.

"I heard people talking about it a while ago but it's disturbing it was at this station," said Shaun Walsh of Flatbush, who operates a Caribbean cable access TV show.

"He died and nobody got his side of the story," Walsh said, shaking his head and looking down the long, partially open train platform.

Eduard Bordes said yesterday that his brother had reported arguments with Ms. Mercier in recent weeks. Ms. Mercier's mother had been living in the apartment, but Bordes made her leave because she was coming between them, his brother said.

Bordes had stopped taking classes at Baruch College a few months ago, according to his brother. He had aspired to a career in finance, and recently held a "student job" at City Hall.

"If somebody would have told me that he did something to himself, I would understand that. But he did something to the kids, this is what I don't understand."

Eduard Bordes said that while he doesn't believe in voodoo, his brother may have taken it seriously.

Some members of Staten Island's African, Caribbean and African-American communities interviewed yesterday admitted that voodoo has a place in their lives, but they repudiated the rationale for child-slaying.

"If you believe in it, it can harm you or it can save you," said Abiodun Samuel of Brooklyn, who was at the West African Food Stuff store in Clifton talking to friends yesterday. Samuel, a native of Africa, says he practices voodoo, but it is voodoo that is used for good.

"I just think he was crazy," said Marcelino Duran, owner of El Pollo Restaurant & Bar in Concord.

Xavier Waldo, 25, of Clifton, said he believes in the existence of voodoo and black magic – but there's not enough of it in the world to make him ever lash out at his children.

Ms. Mercier, meanwhile, cannot contemplate how she will handle the next few days.

"I need to hold my children again," she said. "That's all I want to do."

Police believe Frants Bordes of New Brighton took the lives of his two children between 3 and 8 o'clock Wednesday evening and jumped in front of a train to his death in Brooklyn soon after, around 8 p.m.

2:30 p.m.: Sandra Ayala, who lives on the second floor of 30 Daniel Low Terr. in New Brighton, hears 4-year-old Sweitzer Bordes and 2-year-old Stephanie Bordes running around their apartment, 3P, which is directly above hers.

3 p.m.: The children's mother, Francoise Mercier, 42, starts her 8-hour shift at St. Elizabeth Ann's Health Care and Rehabilitation Center, Stapleton, leaving the children in the care of their father, Frantz Bordes, 39.

3-8 p.m.: Bordes is believed to have killed the children by drowning them in their bathtub.

8:14 p.m.: Bordes jumps in front of a northbound Q train at the Church Avenue station in Brooklyn, killing himself.

11:40 p.m.: Ms. Mercier returns home from work to discover her children unconscious and not breathing inside the bathroom of her apartment.